I sat down yesterday morning and started drafting this week's Muse... I wanted to respond to all the messages I'd received from last week's Muse about vaccination. My intention was to honour and share my condolences and compassion for all the suffering that you shared. I wanted to say thank you for all your wisdom, all your sources of information, from all sides of the vaccination argument, over the past week. I wanted to thank you all for being so passioned and engaged. Please consider all of that said, and more.
Because then something simple but so monumental happened, that I was swept up into a different world, ‘beyond’, as Rumi said, 'rightdoing and wrongdoing', and into a world of wonder and oneness.
In the midst of writing, I took a break for lunch and went for a swim. I received SUCH a blessing from the ocean that I just want to share this with you, as it touched me so deeply, and I feel it had a message for me, and possibly for all of us.
Towards the end of my 40-minute swim around the bay, still in the blue, I was approaching the reef, and from the corner of my eye spotted something around one metre from the surface. Normally it's a floating plastic bag, which I stuff into my swimsuit and take with me to put in the trash.
But this time, it was a beautiful turtle. Sightings of turtles here are pretty rare, and when they happen they are fleeting. A few moments of acknowledging our differences, and then, whoosh, the turtle is off to places I cannot reach her.
Today, she decided to stay. She came in closer, as I hung on the surface, 'turtle-breathing' (I don't use a snorkel so I hold my breath and then bob my head up quickly for a breath before submerging again). I stayed motionless to not startle her. We stayed like that, arms and flippers outstretched for a good few minutes, just being, pure presence.
As she watched me, I felt her trust and confidence grow, and she then gently began to paddle her front flippers, in relaxed circles, as if beckoning me to join her. I don't need to be asked twice. I mimicked her paddling with my arms semi-extended from my sides, and off we went.
First a cruise further out into the blue, full of fascination and gratitude for this moment, aware - and almost expecting - that at any moment she could disappear. Then we hung a right back towards the bay, and cruised in a huge, lazy, generous loop towards the reef. Her ramora was dancing beneath her soft belly, shifting position, almost losing her as he detached to nibble at a tasty morsel of turtle poo, then with a panicky dart, chased and re-docked to his mother-ship.
There were snorkellers splashing around by the corals and I had a sense of dread that they would see her and disturb our moment of blissful connection. Maybe she sensed it too, and so we again curved round to the right, and headed back into the blue. On and on...
I checked my watch... I couldn't believe it. This beautiful lady had been hanging out with me now for almost 15 minutes! This wasn't coincidence, or projection. If a turtle isn't interested there is nothing you can do to prolong the interaction. This little lady was inviting me to swim with her, further and further.
How beautiful to be seen and accepted by this magnificent creature, to be so welcome in her world. Eye to eye, consciousness to consciousness, dancing, playing.
And the longer we spent together, the closer she came to me, the more relaxed her surface breaths became, as she bobbed her head through the surface and we made eye to eye contact for a moment in my world.
By this time I'd been in the water for well over an hour and was starting to feel a chill. My skin was getting goose pimples, as I wondered just how long this connection, this dance could last... I wanted it to go on forever....
But I also know that I am a visitor in the ocean, blessed to share a few moments, and that one of us would eventually say goodbye. I decided it would be me - I decided to choose to part, and savour the pleasure of watching her cruise gracefully into the blue.
So sure of herself in her realm, and yet so vulnerable. So graceful, yet with a form that is almost comical. At times while observing her she had morphed into a little fat, round angel, with the wizened head of an ancient woman, beating her wings gently to fly. I was truly in the presence of the divine.
And this moment spoke to me beyond the layers of right and wrong, good and bad... there is one ocean, one source of life force, one home : we are all one. If I were to be so bold as to change Rumi's poem just slightly, I would say:
Today I wish you a week full of presence, however that manifests for you.
To savour the tiny precious moments of simple peace and connection that all too often go by unacknowledged, without gratitude, in the rush of our busy-ness, the stress and pressure of our daily lives.
I wish for you to take time in nature and just observe, and listen for the messages and lessons she has to impart to us.
I wish for you to connect and share with loved ones, and strangers alike, and to see all that we have in common, beyond our opinions and differences,
With deep love and a huge one-ocean hug,